


there are people who love you

by nevernevergirl



Series: the war is over and we are beginning [4]
Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22704847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevernevergirl/pseuds/nevernevergirl
Summary: Gert and Chase aren't doing Valentine's Day. Karolina and Nico just want a quiet afternoon. Molly meddles. Alex doesn't know what he wants.Scenes from the hostel, Valentine's Day edition.
Relationships: Chase Stein/Gertrude Yorkes, Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru
Series: the war is over and we are beginning [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685389
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	there are people who love you

**Author's Note:**

> takes place roughly 8 months-ish after the season 3 finale; i headcanon everyone who plans to go to college taking at least a year off to actually sort out their high school degrees and apply bc it logistically drives me less insane lmao, so everyone's still in the hostel!

“We said we weren’t doing Valentine’s day,” Gert says, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s a made up holiday, and it’s a lot of pressure for something that’s inherently consumerist and performative, and even if that weren’t true, we’re still kind of _broke_ , so—”

“Yeah, we’re not,” Chase says, cutting her off. He’s smiling smugly, though, so Gert eyes him warily.

“You’re literally holding a card. Like, I can see it. You know I can see it, right?”

“Who said you were my Valentine?” he grins, poking his head out the door to their room. “Hey, Old Lace!”

And that’s when Gert gets an actual look at the card. There’s a cartoon t-rex on it, and it says “Have a Dino-mite Valentine’s Day” in a bubbly pink print.

Gert groans, just as Old Lace comes bounding in, a sloppily wrapped present clutched between her teeth.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she grumbles. Chase is crouching down, opening the card for Lace and reading it to her as she nuzzles his shoulder lightly, dropping the package in his lap.

“Hey, _we_ said no Valentine’s Day. Lace and I made no such agreement,” he says, tearing into his present.

“She slobbered all over that,” Gert says, dryly. Lace looks up at her, making a noise approximately in the neighborhood of a scoff. “And you’re both _traitors_.”

Chase ignores her, absolutely beaming as he holds up a bright blue pair of socks with tiny pizza slices printed all over them. 

“Sweet,” he says, high fiving the dinosaur. “Thanks, buddy.”

Old Lace roars happily in response.

“Unbelievable,” Gert says, shaking her head. “How did she even get socks? Those have a _tag_ on them, they came from a _store_! How did you _wrap_ socks from a _store_ , you’re a dinosaur!”

“You’re welcome!” Molly’s voice calls out from down the hall. Chase laughs, brightly, petting Lace softly as she dino-coos. 

“You’re all so dumb,” Gert says. “That includes you, Molly!” 

She can’t stop smiling. 

The Treehouse is quiet, and it’s fucking nice. 

Especially in contrast to whatever dumbfuckery is happening in the rest of the house. Gert and Chase were being loud as hell earlier—not in the gross way, thankfully, or in the actual fighting way, so it’s not Nico’s problem. Nico doesn’t have any problems right now. 

Nico has what’s left of the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the bits of unobscured window and tree-ceiling-cracks, and she has a copy of _To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before_ she grabbed a library sale last week, stuffing it into Karolina’s bag on the way home before any of the assholes she lived with could see it. Karolina _had_ smirked, but she didn’t say anything. 

She could have. Annoying shit is cute when Karolina does it, which is also kind of annoying. She sort of doesn’t care. Chase called her whipped last week, like he has any room to talk.

He’s probably right, though. Karolina’s next to her on the bed right now, cross-stitching. Well. She’s trying to cross-stitch. She’s been teaching herself the past couple of weeks, and she definitely sucks at it, and she can’t thread a needle without somehow managing to prick at least three fingers. But she always looks so proud of herself whenever she finishes a section, no matter how messy it ends up, so Nico’s pretty sure she’d let her cover the walls in her shitty cross-stitch, if she wanted.

Peter Kavinsky’s asking _what is it about girls and rain_ , and Lara Jean’s about to internally monologue some John Ambrose foreshadowing, when someone knocks on their door. Nico groans.

“Unless someone’s dying or we’re being invaded, go away,” she calls out. “It’s fucking quiet time!”

Another knock, and then something sliding under the door, and then a giggle that 100% belongs to Molly. She glances at Karolina, who bites her lip. 

“I’m in the middle of this stitch,” she says, and Nico (still whipped), closes her book, sighs, and gets up.

There’s a card on the floor. 

It’s purple, and covered with candy hearts, and says “Just Gals Being Vals” in the center. 

Nico snorts before she has a chance to think about it. 

“Isn’t it great?” Molly calls out, from the other side of the door. “I think it’s great. I had to explain the joke to Alex, but he thought it was great too once he got it.”

“Did you...buy a Valentine’s Day Card for us?”

“Yep!” she says, brightly. “Is Karolina in there? You should give it to her now.”

“I’m here, Molly,” Karolina says, finally dropping her embroidery hoop and walking over, wrapping her arms around Nico’s waist, crouching down to hook her chin over Nico’s shoulder. “Give me what?”

Nico holds up the card, grinning a little when Karolina does. Karolina reaches up to open it.

“I love being your wife,” she reads, and Nico feels her cheeks go hot. “Molly. Are you proposing for us?

“I’m not _not_ proposing for you,” she says, casually. “I can get ordained online whenever you want.”

Nico rolls her eyes, pushing down the fluttering in her stomach. “No, you can’t. You’re 16.”

“Fine. Whenever you want after I’m not 16,” she says, and Nico’s suddenly filled with a deep and utter respect for older sisters everywhere. She was never this bad, right? Definitely not. 

“Brat,” she says, and then Karolina’s kissing her cheek.

“We can save it for the future,” she murmurs, and Nico smiles, turning in her arms and wrapping her arms around her neck. 

“Sounds good,” she says. “What about right now? Still working on that stitch?”

“I think I’m good,” Karolina grins. “How about your book?”

Nico shakes her head, smiling stupidly. 

“Hey, Molly?” she calls out. “You’re probably not going to want to be standing there in a minute.”

Molly yelps, and then shuffles away, and Karolina’s laughing and tugging her to the bed. 

Peter and Lara Jean can wait. 

_Saw tamar and your dad yesterday. They said you’re doing okay. Hope that’s true._

Alex stares at his phone, the way he’s been doing on and off since Livvie sent that text two days ago. He doesn’t know what to say back. He doesn’t know if he should say anything. 

It’s been over a year since they were anything. He’s seen her a couple of times, but he’s stayed away. They haven’t talked much. He doesn’t know if they should. He doesn’t know if he wants to. Actually, he does _want_ to, in the way he wants to be the person he was last year, and that’s the whole problem. 

It’s been a fucking lifetime. 

Someone slams something down on the desk in front of him, and he startles, flailing a little to keep his balance in his chair. 

Karolina bites her lip like she’s holding back a laugh. He sighs.

“Yeah, yeah. Nearly give a guy a heart attack and then laugh at him,” he says, grumbling. It’s half-hearted. Sometimes he thinks he doesn’t know how to be around most people anymore, but his friends are different. They don’t get all of it, but they were in hell too. They know enough that he doesn’t feel like crawling out of his skin around them.

Much.

Karolina shrugs. “You’re fine, you didn’t even actually fall. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

She nods toward the desk, and he finally sees what she slammed down—a Hello Kitty Valentine’s card, the kind elementary school kids give out their whole class, with a heart-shaped sucker attached. He smiles, just a little. 

“Thanks, K. Happy Valentine’s day.” He says, setting the card down. She doesn’t leave, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at him.

“Open it, dummy,” she says. He sighs, picking the card back up and peeling off the glitter-coated sticker holding it closed.

Pink gel pen in Karolina’s loopy scrawl reads: _family romcom night, 9 pm BE THERE!!!!!!_

“It’s 8:57,” she says, shrugging. “I couldn’t find you after lunch, and then Nico and I were—”

“Busy?” he teases, grinning. She sticks her tongue out at him, and he laughs. 

“Seriously, Alex. Come on, it’ll be fun. What else were you going to do tonight?”

“Well…” he glances at his computer. 

“Alex,” she says, firmly. “There are people out there who love you. You should spend Valentine’s Day with them. With us.”

She holds out her hand. He stares at her for a moment before taking it.

“Yeah, okay.”

When Karolina tugs him out to the front room, they’ve already dragged one of the working TVs to the center and circled the furniture and a plethora of junk food around it. Karolina drops his hand, going to join Nico on the chaise. Gert and Chase are sprawled on the couch, guarding a giant bowl of popcorn. Molly’s on the floor, unwrapping a Reese’s Cup for Old Lace, when she notices him, grinning. 

“Alex! We’re about to start 13 Going On 30!”

“You missed the veto round,” Nico says, mouth half-full of candy.

“No vetos,” Gert snaps. “It’s an on-theme classic, we’re watching it.”

“Don’t you hate Valentine’s?” Alex says, raising his eyebrows. Gert throws a handful of popcorn in his direction. A couple of pieces stick to his hair.

“Hey, hey, don’t waste good popcorn,” Chase complains. “Wilder, get your ass over here!”

A few minutes later, he’s sharing a heart-shaped box of candy with a dinosaur while Gert and Molly chant _thirty flirty and thriving_ with the movie, and he’s not really okay, not all the time, but he has people who love him. That’s nice.

Three movies in, Molly, Old Lace and Nico fall asleep, so the rest of them head to bed too, making half-hearted promises to clean up the candy wrappers in the morning. Chase is already in bed, absently messing around on his tablet, when Gert crawls in beside him. 

She’s wearing one of his shirts, her hair’s already messy from where she was lying against him on the couch during movie night, and he really, really loves her. 

“Hey,” she murmurs, kissing him on the cheek before settling in next to him. “What are you doing?”

“Just playing around,” he shrugs. She leans over, getting a look at the tablet, and makes a face.

“That’s literally calculus. You’re literally doing calculus at, like, 3 a.m.”

“Not well, probably. I’ll fix it in the morning. Just had an idea and wanted to get it down, even if it’s not right.”

She smiles, leaning her head on his shoulder. “This is for the Leapfrog battery right?”

“Mmhm,” he hums, absently. She watches him, and they sit quietly for a moment. It’s nice. Really nice. He thinks maybe she’s dozed off when she shifts, propping herself up on her elbows, looking at him.

“Chase?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you really not get any chocolate?”

He sets his tablet down, looking at her incredulously. “Holy shit, seriously?”

“Chaaaaase,” she whines. 

“Unbelievable,” he mutters, but he’s smiling when he leans over, grabbing a bag of Hershey’s Kisses from under the bed, tossing them at her, followed by a box of Mike and Ikes. Chase thinks they’re disgusting, but Gert’s gotten them at every movie they’ve seen together since they were seven. 

“Yessssss, I knew it,” she says, fist pumping before tearing into the candy. 

He shrugs. “I know you. You’re anti-consumerist propaganda, not sugar.”

She looks up, and she’s smiling, this really soft smile most people probably wouldn’t think of when they think of Gert, and Chase can’t breathe for a second. 

“You know,” she says, biting her lip. “I do still think it’s stupid. Valentine’s Day, I mean. I know I’m probably, like. Too intense about it or whatever, but it’s weird. The things we’re expected to do, and buy, and the way we’re supposed to, like, perform how we feel like buying a card when Hallmark tells you to buy a card actually means something.”

“Gert,” he says, gently. “I know. I get it. I didn’t buy you candy because it’s Valentine’s Day. I bought you candy because I figured you’d want it.”

“I know,” she says, gently, shaking her head. “I know, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

He frowns. “Yeah, you lost me.”

She bites her lip. “This part isn’t stupid. I like this part. And watching dumb movies with our friends. And I like that you exchanged presents with my dinosaur, which is so weird, by the way, but. Nice. It’s nice.”

He grins. “Yeah. Yeah, this part’s nice.”

“I love you,” she says, quietly, easily, like she’s said it a hundred times. And she has. And it still makes him feel like he’s going to explode. 

“Love you too,” he says, and she’s grinning and shoving a chocolate into his mouth, and it’s pretty fucking perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> the gals being vals card really does exist, i wrote this entire fic bc i saw it at target earlier and it made me laugh.


End file.
